"Be careful what you wish for" goes the ancient Chinese proverb. The United States government, pushed and prodded by its industrial leaders to get the Chinese to raise the value of the Yuan, should heed these wise words.

The goal, of course, is to make U.S. goods and services cheaper, thereby improving the balance of trade. The problem is that it makes everything cheaper.

It is true that it would support the remaining manufacturing base, software companies, commodities and consulting services. However, this is but a portion of what we have to offer.

What happens if the Yuan increases by 20% against the dollar, and they decide to buy International Business Machines (IBM) the company, not just IBM mainframes? This is not so far fetched. Lenovo bought the ThinkPad notebook computer division from IBM and now it sells Lenovo ThinkPads to us. They would be able to buy IBM 20% cheaper than you or I could buy it.

Marathon Oil (MRO), first discussed here on April 20, 2009 at a price of $28.55, will probably achieve production gains averaging 4-5% over the next three years, but will that be enough to break the stock's $28-35 year-long trading range?

The calculation here is that MRO has three months to do it. If if can't break the range in the summer months -- historically a good period for oil and refined-product prices -- then the technical indicators will have contradicted fundamental indicators for too long, and that almost always calls for exiting the position.

We're still waiting for the tide to come back in with Marathon Oil (MRO), and it's a close call but I'm reiterating my buy rating for the company's shares, first recommended on April 20, 2009 at a price of $28.55.

In 2010, Marathon's annual oil/natural gas production should increase at an adequate rate in, but the key remains what happens to currently low refining margins: some improvement in margins should start by mid-2010. If it doesn't, MRO's stock will underperform and this position will be closed.

Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) continues to inch along, 'totally un-spectacularly,' with performance weighed-down by the recession's impact on refined products.

I am Reiterating my Buy rating for the company, first recommended on April 20, 2009 at a price of $28.55, but the call recommends only establishing a 25% position, in total.

It's a difficult call, but I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), first recommended on April 20, 2009 at a price of $28.55.

Marathon's stock has meandered, largely due to reduced demand for Marathon's heavy/sour crude -- a negative trend that's likely to continue through at least mid-Q3.

Analyst upgrades:

• Kaufman Bros. assumed coverage of Ctrip.com (NASDAQ: CTRP) and upgraded the stock to Buy from its previous Hold rating. The firm thinks the company's Q2 targets are achievable while 20%-plus growth should return in Q3 as comps ease.
• Janney Montgomery upgraded Cogdell Spencer (NYSE: CSA) to Neutral from Sell as it believes last night's capital raise removes risk. The firm has a $4.50 target on shares.
• Deutsche Bank upgraded Map Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MAPP) to Buy from Hold following the positive Levadex Phase 3 results as it believes the migraine drug could generate peak sales of $250M in the U.S. if approved. Deutsche raised its target on shares to $12 from $5.
• Northwest Natural Gas (NYSE: NWN) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
• Petro-Canada (NYSE: PCZ) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
• Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) was upgraded to Add from Reduce at WestLB.

After a nine-week stock market rally it is time to tally up the winners and losers. In a market where almost everything gained, there must eventually be separation between those that went with the flow and those that had something to show.

The financial stocks, with the help of the government, were able to show some positive earnings. The banks do raise the suspicion that this is a case of "managing the numbers".
The government has helped them along by "reshaping" some accounting rules and giving them advance warning (and leaking to the public) of the results of its stress testing. Until now, they have gone with the flow as the hardest hit stocks and rallied the most.

When I look at the numbers for Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), it is hard for me to believe the company has not been bought out already. Capitalized at $22 billion, it would be easy for most of the major oil companies to swallow whole.

Contrarian that I am, my view differs from that of Credit Suisse, which downgraded the stock yesterday based on valuation and lack of a visible catalyst for near-term growth.